Marcel Meili and Markus Peter, Swiss Design Practice, Switzerland Architects Studio
Marcel Meili and Markus Peter Architects, Switzerland
Architecture Studio in Zürich, Switzerland – Contemporary Architectural Practice
18 Sep 2013
RIBA 2014 International Fellowship
The architects have been awarded a RIBA International Fellowship
RIBA International Fellows 2014 citation:
Marcel Meili and Markus Peter, architects, Switzerland
Marcel Meili and Markus Peter News
Marcel Meili belongs to an architectural generation – a little younger than Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron and Roger Diener – educated at ETH Zürich in the 1970s, an institution that has acquired almost mythical status not only in Switzerland but throughout the architectural world. At that time the school was still heavily influenced by the thinking of Aldo Rossi, and interested in the edge conditions of our cities: interstitial infrastructure, industrial estates and working-class neighbourhoods. Meili contributed to this discourse not only in early speculative projects but in his writings, revealing a lucid understanding of the condition of Swiss architecture today.
Conversely, Peter was trained a few years later through the alternative route open to Swiss architects: an apprenticeship followed by technical college, which imparted a more practical understanding of construction-related issues. Thus, Peter’s technological expertise combined with Meili’s academic perspective in an architecture characterised equally by conceptual coherence and constructional experimentation.
One of the practice’s better-known projects, the timber engineering school in Bienne (1990-1999), clearly illustrates this general strategy. The building grapples with the requirements of its programme on several levels. As a high-rise, large-span timber structure with tectonically expressed timber facades and only the circulation cores cast in concrete, the project explored over a number of years the limits of timber construction and fire protection treatments.
Zürich view at Quaibrücke, Switzerland:
photograph : Daniel Kraft, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Their work reveals a consistent approach, rooted both in a profound familiarity with the rational (Swiss) city and knowledge of Western architectural history. This is grounded in typological research but developed in the direction of a more literary, poetic appraisal of the contradictions within urban environments.
The recent built work of Meili, Peter Architekten includes the RiffRaff cinema in Zurich, the Zurich Central Station extension, the Swiss Re Center for Global Dialogue in Rüschlikon, and the Hyatt Hotel in Zurich. Major current projects include the Zurich Football Stadium, the Helvetia Insurance Headquarters, Milan, and the “Mitten in München” complex, a large passage in the old town of Munich.
More information about Marcel Meili and Markus Peter online soon
Location: Gartenhofstrasse 15, 8004 Zürich, Switzerland, central Europe
Marcel Meili, Markus Peter Architekten – Practice Information
Marcel Meili, Markus Peter Architekten office is based in Zürich, Switzerland and München, Germany.
Swiss Architect – Architect Listings
Swiss Architectural Designs
Swiss Architecture Designs – architectural selection below:
Swiss Architecture Designs – chronological list
Zurich Architecture Walking Tours – bespoke city walks by e-architect guides
Ispace Installation, Rossa, Moesa Region, canton of Graubünden
Design: Davide Macullo Architects
photo : Corrado Griggi
Ispace Installation Rossa
Weltpostpark site buildings, Bern
Design: SSA Architekten, Basel, Switzerland
photograph © Ruedi Walti
Weltpostpark residential buildings Bern
Buildings / photos for the Marcel Meili and Markus Peter Architects – Zürich Design Studio page welcome
Website: www.meilipeter.ch